The Wedding Group (10 page)

His voice was anxious, yet optimistic, as if he were visiting her in hospital, and she lay back peacefully against the pillows and closed her eyes.

‘One of our worst mistakes,’ Toby said to David. ‘Even worse than that carriage-table that had wood-worm.’

‘
You
bought that,’ Alexia reminded him. ‘This mistake is
mine
.’

They were in the sitting-room office behind the shop, and David kept glancing towards the half-opened door.

‘It’s all right. She’s gone to the pub with her father,’ Toby said. ‘Every Friday evening they meet there. She gets quite excited about it.’

‘Poor child!’ David said.

‘Exactly!’ Alexia agreed. ‘This is the trouble. One evening, the silence up aloft was so… so… I was conscious of her up there keeping quiet. I said to Toby that we simply must ask her down – just for once, to show… I ran up and tapped on her door, and do you know what she was doing?’

‘No,’ David said, with interest.

‘She was leaning out of the window, staring at that brick wall of the Horseshoes.’

‘Did she come down?’

‘Yes. She asked us questions for half an hour, and then looked at the clock, and said she must go to bed.’

‘What sort of questions?’

‘Had we loved our parents; did we ever go to dances; were we religious; how much did my sweater cost; did we hope to be buried or cremated…’

‘Both so delightful,’ Toby said.

‘And things like, was everything in the shop insured, in case she should happen to break something; and what does vodka taste like, and have we ever stayed at the Ritz. You name it, she asked it, as Mrs Brindle would say.’

‘Well, I am rather interested in the answers, too,’ David said, ‘but I dare say you’ve had enough of it. Doesn’t she ever go home?’

‘Yes, between services on Sundays.’

‘To have such a waif on one’s hands,’ Toby said.

‘It’s the feeling of guilt hanging over us,’ his sister said.

With feelings of guilt David could sympathise. ‘I’ll take her out one of these evenings,’ he offered.

On Sunday afternoons, Cressy trudged up Quayne Hill, through the cluttering leaves, breathing in the smell of moss and mould. She lived amongst the smell of old things – old stuffs and furniture in the shop, the damp wallpaper in her bedroom. And when she reached Quayne, there was the scent of rotting apples, and incense, and Rachel’s wines fermenting.

Joe MacPhail was usually dozing, with a newspaper on his lap; but one Sunday, she found him sitting at the table, writing his book. He had decided that steps must be taken about his own despair, and his daughter’s dissatisfactions. It had been a comfort to him to realise and it was the first time he had truly realised it – the importance of money. It was something he could work for, aim at, something practical to do. The old torments of sloth, of procrastination, of accidie (a word much used by his father-in-law) had been no goad like this immediate one
of wanting to take Cressy to some of the places he had briefly known as a young man. Romano’s, he knew, no longer existed, and he had come upon it in its decline; but were there not still Rules and Boulestin’s? He imagined Cressy settling back on a red velvet banquette, while he casually flipped open the padded leather wine-list. Once, he had known a thing or two about wine – from the old days at Jammet’s in Dublin with his father, who had also known a thing or two. Cressy would try to conceal her respect and astonishment at this new side to him, wearing a careless air, as if on every evening of their lives they dined in such splendour. But when the wine-waiter had reverently withdrawn, she would smile at Joe, bright with excitement and complicity. Both would be dressed in a way that Rose would abhor; but Rose was not there. He always skipped that part of the day-dream, and went on to wonder what had become of that dark suit he once had had. Though it would be no good for nowadays. Cressy would realise – from seeing young men in the Three Horseshoes – that the trouser-legs were far too wide, with flapping turn-ups. He would have to buy a new one. There would have to be a very good advance on his book. Money, he suddenly saw, was the answer to almost everything. Mr Burns and Mr Oates would have to cough up a great deal, or he would want to know the reason why. After all, the book had taken years to write.

It was also a satisfaction to be discovered by Cressy, with his papers all over the table, and his fingers black from the dribbling dip-in pen. He was wearing his tweed jacket, made by Rose from unwashed sheep’s wool. It was creased, but stiff. The oil in it kept the rain out, and it was still faintly beaded with moisture, from his just having collected kindling-wood in the drizzle.

Rose was in the kitchen, making a sponge cake for tea. She was always strung-up when Cressy came – waiting and waiting
for her – and then finding that they were strangers. So she – as Joe – liked to be busy with practical things. It would be too absurd to sit by the fire and entertain her daughter in conversation.

When she saw Cressy coming up the path between the brussels sprouts, she was as apprehensive as ever. Each week, she expected her to give in, to ask to come home; but it never happened. Always in the early evening, Cressy said good-bye, and thanked her mother for tea, as any visitor would. And then what did she do? Rose wondered. Get up to? But Cressy did not say.

Rose was folding egg-whites into the mixture when Cressy came in. At least she still walked in through the back door, and did not go round and knock at the front.

‘How’ve you been getting on?’ Rose asked, without looking up, for she was at the tricky stage with the cake-making, and might have timed it with a stop-watch for this very moment. I am embarrassed with my daughter, she thought, and she felt great envy for her sisters, with their happy, Quayne existences. She tried to sound bright and welcoming, but her face had settled to a wounded look. She always wore it now.

Cressy tried to think of little bits of news.

‘You look peaky,’ Rose said, sighing. She loved this devious child, but the love seemed to be all worry and sadness.

‘I’m all right.’

‘What did you have for lunch?’

‘Oh, the usual – roast beef and things. Apple tart.’

Her mother did not know that Toby and Alexia were not providing nourishing meals. She had never met ‘those two’, as she thought of them, and hoped she never would. She almost felt that they had kidnapped her only child. She seldom went down to the village.

Joe called out, and Cressy found him in the living-room, sitting at the table, grinning like a schoolboy, his papers spread
out before him, and piles of what he euphemistically called his reference books. Although he was getting his book out of other books, there was, just the same, a lot of hard work involved.

Cressy stood by the window, looking out across the orchard. With its rough, hoary grass, it was a disheartening sight. Leaves drifted down in the misty air. Under the trees, her Pre-Raphaelite cousins were picking up windfalls, like girls in a legend, searching for hidden treasure. Cressy, nowadays, liked to keep out of their way. Although in their very latest teens, they still looked at her uneasily – the obedient children who had been warned off a bad influence.

She could smell the sponge-cake baking, and longed to be eating it. She lived on things on toast, and not enough of them. Her mother came in and put another gnarled branch on the fire, which kept giving out soft puffs of smoke. Logs dribbled on to the bed of ashes that had accumulated since the beginning of autumn.

Joe decided to make a pretence of going on working. He, less than Rose even, wanted Cressy to be there as a visitor. He flopped open a heavy book and began to turn its pages. Dear Lord, he thought, I used to know more than I know now. My poor old brains have drained away.

‘How’s Father Daughtry?’ Cressy asked, for something to say. These Sunday afternoons were tedious and exacting.

‘Why?’ asked her mother, looking up hopefully from the fire.

‘I only wondered.’

Rose bent down again and rearranged the branch. ‘He’s the same,’ she said.

At last it was teatime, and the sponge-cake was put on the table, with a loaf of Rachel’s bread and a pat of Rose’s butter. The books were cleared away to one end.

As Rose was pouring out the tea, Harry Bretton looked in on his way back from the compost-heap, which was his favourite
leisure occupation. He sat down at the table, with his chair at an angle, as if he did not intend to stay long.

‘You’re pale, my child,’ he told Cressy. ‘Our poor little shop-girl. Rather Dickensian. You should be out of doors more.’

‘My work is
in
doors,’ she said. She had tried with her parents, but could not help being sullen with him.

‘Do you still think it is a good idea?’ he asked gravely.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not simply being obstinate?’

‘No.’

Harry had loved his children tenderly when they were little, and still did. He could not bear to see Rose’s unhappy frown, and she could not bear to hide it.

‘Is it worth it?’ he went on, taking a piece of sponge-cake.

‘Worth what?’

‘Making your mother anxious.’

Cressy looked surprised. ‘Angry’, perhaps: ‘anxious’ had not occurred to her. She had thought she had weighed everything up, had exchanged Quayne for hunger and loneliness and insecurity. The very sight of her grandfather had made her glad she had done so. Now Rose’s anxiety was thrown upon the scales and with it her own callousness.

However, depressed as she was, she was still hungry. The cake was so fresh, so light and eggy, with a slight flavour of orange-peel.

The logs dribbled; the conversation languished. Harry took another piece of cake, and praised it. Joe took another slice, too, and Cressy watched them. There was always plenty of home-made cake about for them, she thought crossly; but not for her.

‘There is no need for anyone to be anxious,’ she said. ‘I’m nearly nineteen years old. Other girls of my age can go to Timbuctoo without their mothers getting into a fuss.’

‘I just wondered if you were truly happy – as we know your cousins are truly happy – or punishing yourself and others for the sake of rebellion.’

‘How can working in a shop be rebellion?’ Cressy asked. And, damn it, if he wasn’t helping himself to a third slice, and she had hardly begun her second.

‘Now, Cressy!’ Joe said softly. ‘No point in going over old ground.’

For a moment, Harry fancied that this might be intended to rebuke him – but discarded the idea. At least he was sure he had his daughters’ generation in hand.

‘Well, Rose,’ he said, ‘she appreciates your cooking, if nothing else.’ He smiled. The red lips parted above the beard, showing pearly-grey teeth. He handed the plate to Cressy and she took the last slice.

That evening, she was more disconsolate than ever, trying to knit herself a sweater, which kept going wrong. She had never been gifted at domestic things, as her cousins were. They had always had to put things right for her, covering up, unpicking, supervising.

The rooms above the shop were quiet – Toby and Alexia had gone out.

She made some cocoa with the last of the milk, and sipped it slowly, with a sense of luxury. Then she took the empty bottle downstairs, rinsed it, and put it outside the back door.

Toby and Alexia’s sitting-room door was closed. Very softly, as if they were somewhere in the house and might hear, she opened it. She stepped into the room and glanced round, her loneliness in some way eased by the evidence of other people’s lives about her. Although the room was familiar enough to her, there were things she had always wanted to have a closer look at – especially the photograph of their beautiful, dark-haired,
drooping-mouthed mother in her nineteen-twenties dress, and with a long bead necklace looped through her fingers. She had an expression, Cressy thought, of knowing that she would have to die and leave her darlings. She studied the photograph for some time, not touching it, almost like a burglar avoiding leaving any fingerprints. Then she turned to other objects. Books she skimmed over, not much interested in reading. There was a framed sampler, with the name
Alice Moorhead
done in cross-stitch.

Even looking at her own face in someone else’s glass made a change. She smoothed her hair. Yes, she was pale and peaky, as they had said. She blew out her cheeks and banged them. Then she wandered on round the room, now laying her hands on things, for company. On the pinewood dresser, which had just come in from a sale, was a row of bottles. She pulled out corks and sniffed. Whisky. She recoiled from that one, and from rum, pushing the corks back quickly. Vodka. She tried that one with especial interest. It sounded exotic to her; but was nothing: disappointing. Cointreau – really delicious, this one. She lingered over it, sniffing deeply, with pleasure.

Suddenly there was a rattling on the shop door-handle. She started in terror, tried to ram back the cork into the bottle, missed it, tipped the bottle, and the sticky liquid was spilled down her skirt, some on the pale-wood dresser, some on the carpet.

David continued to rattle the door-handle and he stooped down and called through the letter-box. When he straightened his back, he saw through the glass panel of the door, a pale shape gliding slowly towards him through the dark shop, coming between the pieces of furniture like a sleep-walker.